Rococo has been missing for centuries, but their influence lives until this days, especially in the Lolita fashion. Or so at least see the Japanese artist and designer Junichi Hakamaki, who in his next work "Les filles de Marie Antoinette" (Daughters of Marie Antoinette), seeks to answer a question: What if Marie Antoinette were reborn in present-day Harajuku ?

The work of Hakamaki located the Lolita at an intersection between fashion and art. All will begin this October at the Tokyo Fashion Week with a live installation. They hold a tea party in a completely white box with Louis XVI style furniture, modern dishes inspired by the lolita and cakes designed by Ai Akizuki, Hakamaki himself and the graphic designer. There will be 10 lolitas invited which may participate in the tea ceremony and then choose lolita clothes. Each one will be made up and style by specialists who often work with designers from Tokyo.

Every piece of the installation will be designed by Hakamaki especially for the work: "They are all crafted and made in Japan. We feel that the Lolita movement was born in Japan and the clothes we produce should be carefully crafted in Japan as well. Unfortunately almost all of the clothes, that are produced by various Lolita brands, are made in China and other south Asian countries.”. Ai, added that she would likes to introducing a new Lolita style with this project, one that can change the world.

Hakamaki has been painting Japanese young girls for the past five years, in a series of works called "Akiba Girls”, that was even presented in New York in 2013.

Why this interest in Japanese girls?

"I see that distinctively new beauty is emerging in Japan. It is quite different from the beauty our ancestors have projected. In one sense, it is disconnected from our traditional way of seeing beauty. I see that beauty in Lolita. I can only describe in words such as sweet, fragile, airy, dreamy, naïve, and escapism".

How does the project connect art and fashion?

"My approach to Lolita is that there is incredibly unique expression in Lolita. There is a strong potential to become Art and Mode because it’s expression is vastly different from anything else I know. At this moment, Lolita is categorized as sub-culture in part with cos-play, not as Art or Mode. In my view, the most interesting and powerful expression that is coming out of Japan in fashion is Lolita. While world fashion is moving toward simplicity and accessibility, which is represented by H&M and Uniqlo, Lolita is excessively ornamental and decorative. I feel that Lolita has the strong potential to bring Mode into a new level of expression. I am able to say the same thing with Art as well”.

In the pictures that are available, two girls are posing as Hakamaki will ask to the tea party’s attendees, "as Marie Antoinette would do in the current Harajuku". Ai, communications manager of the project, explains that no one is a professional model, because they wanted to capture the real essence of Lolita’s beauty.

Marie Antoinette enters the project by the hand of a manga in Japan. In 1972 the most important manga in Japan was "The Rose of Versailles" (Lady Oscar) of Riyoko Ikeda, who achieved it popularity only two years after the opening of the first Harajuku brand: Milk. The impact of the work of Ikeda was so strong that changed the way that young people perceive beauty and it remains: "Fictitious story of “Rose of Versailles” was inspired by the life of Marie Antoinette during French revolution. Therefore I believe that Lolita fashion has greatly influenced by French Rococo".

"This type of costume was disappeared from Europe in early 20th century when Paul Poiret changed the dynamics of fashion at the turn of the century and enhanced by Coco Chanel in the 10s, then resurfaced briefly by Christian Dior in the 50s. This type of clothing have been worn by the young Japanese females as daily use in the furthest part of Asia while the original source in Europe died out more than 100 years ago. Why? This question is the artist quest for me to solve”.